


Lightning War

by ars_belli



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Hand of Thrawn Duology - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:51:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_belli/pseuds/ars_belli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lightning War, <i>n.</i>:<br/>1. war conducted with great speed and force;<br/>2. specifically, a violent surprise offensive by massed air forces and mechanized forces in close coordination.</p><p>One last campaign before the Empire decides to surrender to the New Republic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SevenCorvus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenCorvus/gifts).



It was the character of his adversary which would decide the battle. Not the decisions of the officer, trained and polished by long years in the Academy; nor the morale of the leader, whose men followed from respect rather than fear or love; nor the stubbornness of a loyal servant of an Empire slowly crumbling into nothing. There were volumes on _them_ in the Intelligence archives, even the Navy textbooks. But even IIS had precious little information on the person, nor his personal affairs.  
  
Yet his adversary's subconscious would — he was certain of it — implicitly rule every order he gave. The admiral glanced at the datapad again, running his fingers over the liquid crystal as if he could read the imprint of previous drafts in the smoothness of the screen.  
 _From Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet; to General Garm Bel Iblis, greetings! It is my intention, with the full support of the council of Moffs, to open negotiations…_  
Pellaeon wanted peace. What did this offer—this blatant surrender—tell him? That his old friend would be transformed by the past decade was obvious. But into what? Warily, he picked up the stylus and began to draft orders.  
 _From the office of Grand Moff Disra, with the support of the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, the Star Destroyers…_  


  


* * *

  


Captain Ardiff lingered at his side. Ever since Pellaeon had suggested the notion of peace talks, his second-in-command had clung to his footsteps like a Jawa to a second-hand landspeeder. _Perhaps I am only used parts,_ he mused. _Old and tired._  
"Is there anything else, captain?"  
"No extraordinary news…"  
That much was evident from Ardiff's fidgeting, gloved fingers tap-tap-tapping against his grey trousers.  
"…Both of the Star Destroyers you pulled from the Braxtant Sector Fleet have successfully jumped to hyperspace. It looks like Moff Disra didn't even put up a fight."  
Missions? Most probably Disra was tying up (or blowing up) any connections to pirate gangs before Imperial Intelligence got too close to him. Pellaeon certainly hadn't authorised anything.  
"Did they send any transmissions?" he asked Ardiff.  
"Ah, no Admiral. Our forward scouts picked up traces of the _Tyrannic_ 's hyperspace jump in the spectral energy distribution. It and the _Relentless_ both left Braxtant Sector within 0200 and 0400 hours, _Chimaera_ time."  
"Thank you, Captain. Tell the scout lead that I want their hyperspace vector predictions immediately."  
His captain handed over a datapad, preferring to avoid projecting the report straight onto the holo display for the rest of the bridge to see. He had some sense at least. Pellaeon drummed his fingers on the arm of the command chair.  
"So: two ships, only two possible vectors of interest: Braxtant-Raiobello-Atrivis, skirting the Braxtant Run; or Braxtant-Dalonbian-Wyl, following the spiral arm. Send one ship towards the Deep Core and the other towards the Corporate Sector."  
Ardiff was silent for a moment. Pellaeon could see his frantic deductions breaking the Academy-regulation calm, like the slight rise and fall of a calm sea.  
"I looked up the mission orders for both ships before I came, Admiral. I didn't call them yours lightly."  
A brief flicker of jealousy lanced through him. He had never been able to read Grand Admiral Thrawn like that. _If only I had, perhaps…_ He called up the mission briefing:  


> From the office of Grand Moff Disra, with the support of the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, the Star Destroyers RELENTLESS and TYRANNIC are hereby assigned to extra-Sector targets.  
>  The primary orders are to attempt a breakthrough into New Republic space without detection by the border defensive screens of the New Republic.  
>  Captains Dorja and Nalgol are to be given all assistance in completing their missions with the utmost efficiency and vigour.  
>  The secrecy of these missions cannot be overstated.  
>  [Signed] Supreme Commander, Imperial Fleet.

  
"Moff Disra has been doing some high-level slicing. What can we assume from this?"  
"Why not send both ships along one route? Asset rich, defence poor: that was the old jibe about the Corporate Sector in the Academy."  
He nodded. Making Pellaeon waste his time on a diplomatically dubious wild bantha chase into the Republic-held core was just the sort of move Disra would pull. Meanwhile, he could hit-and-run any loose ends in the sparsely-populated spiral arm, legitimising his mission by dropping into the Empire-Corporate border negotiations.  
"Get the _Obliterator_ and the _Ironhand_ to make full speed to Dalonbian Sector. They are to shadow the _Tyrannic_ and _Relentless_. The _Chimaera_ will head along the Braxtant Run. We'll maintain full battle conditions until Muunilist."  
"Sir."  
"You have the bridge, Captain."  
Ardiff saluted neatly. Pellaeon turned, heading for his quarters.

* * *

  


"Bridge," chimed the turbolift.  
He cleared his mind and stepped out of the turbolift car.  
"Officers of the _Relentless_ , we have a new set of orders."  
With all eyes fixed on Captain Dorja's briefing, no-one had a glance to spare for him.  
"Both ships have managed to exit hyperspace fully cloaked without blundering into each other, skeleton crews notwithstanding."  
That raised a laugh from the crew pits.  
"However, our war game has just begun. Even now, two of the Fleet's remaining thirty Star Destroyers are running after the _Tyrannic_ 's initial jump vector. Doubtless the entire Braxtant-Dalonbian-Wyl Run is crawling with Interdictor Cruisers to pull us from hyperspace."  
Pellaeon would hardly be that foolish. It would be impossible to continue the fiction that this was a mere war game, not with so many ships involved. This was battle for the future of the entire Empire.  
"Accordingly, the helm will take us out via the route Braxtant-Raiobello-Atrivis—"  
"Sir, with all due respect—the route into the Core will be just as risky. We don't have the up-to-date minefield maps for Galactic North of that route."  
The Lieutenant Commander heading the Intelligence crew pit was clearly not afraid of his superiors. A little more frank assessment and perhaps the Empire's resources might not have been frittered away on super-weapons and infighting.  
"We'll keep to Galactic South of the minefields, Lieutenant Commander."  
"We're taking the Braxtant Run?" asked the chief navigator. "It's a commercial hub, surely we'll be seen—"  
He stared out at the viewport and saw nothing. The conning tower on the _Tyrannic_ was mere kilometres away.  
"Not cloaked," Dorja replied.  
The only sound was the constant hum of the engines.  
"That—that's asking rather a lot, isn't it?—"  
The Admiral cleared his throat. This was a briefing, not _HoloNet Twenty Questions_.  
" _Asking_ , First Officer?"  
The duty officer reacted first.  
"Admiral on deck!"  
Under more peaceful times, he would have made a fine soprano. The poor First Officer was at least capable of multi-tasking; managing to gape, stare and salute simultaneously. He returned the salute and walked to the command chair.  
"Do go on. 'Asking rather a lot' of what exactly, beyond the capabilities of my navigation and intelligence officers?"  
"Well, the, er, primarily the energy reserves. In theory, we could have Intelligence create probability distributions of the commercial runs; and make Navigation go to double precision in the course computer."  
"In theory we would avoid any traffic, no?"  
The First Officer's eyes darted to his and back again. A court fool more foolish than most had likened meeting his gaze to deflecting the Emperor's Force lightening with one's eyeballs. The Emperor had permitted him to choose which of the two he preferred as a means of execution.  
"That is true, of course, but the cloaking shield doesn't leave much margin for error in the fuel situation."  
"Do you think the Grand Admiral makes 'errors', First Officer?"  
He waved Dorja into silence. It had been longer than he had cared to admit since he had been in his inferior officer's shoes. _Inferior in more than one sense,_ he considered darkly.  
"Should my subordinate be punished for his forthrightness, Captain?"  
The Captain kept his temper under control.  
"He was certainly direct, Admiral. Provided no insubordination was meant—"  
"None at all, sir, Admiral!" interjected the First Officer.  
He saluted again and fled to the helm.  
"Is my flagship ready?"  
His mind flashed to the last time he had said those words on the bridge of the greatest capital ship produced in the entire Galaxy. To Gilad—Captain Pellaeon—of whom he might have made so much, once.  
"The _Relentless_ awaits your command, Admiral."  
"Jump to hyperspace on my command. Four, three, two, one, mark."  
The nothing faded into more nothing. The only difference was the vibration of the deck plates.  


  


* * *

  


Pellaeon let the hot water soothe his stiff joints. Even after so many years in his quarters, the luxury never failed to amuse him. The water was recycled, of course, but there was enough of it to fill an entire hot bath: no three-minute showers for the Empire's flag officers! _When we still had an Empire._ Such opulence was nearly fifteen years out of date, Thrawn's specifications a relic of the endless resources of the pre-Endor empire. One that might have risen again, were it not for Rukh and the other Noghri traitors. Could he blame them, really? Had someone done that to his home world, surely Pellaeon would have fought the same. Shaking his head, he plunged under the water. The comm beeped. He surfaced, blinking shampoo from his eyes.  
"Admiral? The bridge has just received a report from the _Ironhand._ They are under fire, requesting urgent assistance."  
He heaved himself from the bath, seizing a towel.  
"Patch the transmission to my quarters. Thank you, Major Tschel."  
"Sir. Bridge out."  
He had just flung on a new uniform when the downlink signal beeped on his comm. Connecting it to the computer's holopad, the durasteel quarters faded into the blackness of space. Three ships the length of his fingers appeared in the space, two haloed in green, one in red. Smaller dots in green swarmed around the friendly capital ships. Flickers of turbolaser fire darted between the ships, but the characteristic red lines of proton missiles were absent. On the desk, a quarter-size holo of the _Ironhand_ 's captain flickered into life.  
"Admiral Pellaeon, good to see you."  
"Captain," Pellaeon acknowledged.  
 _Do the words 'shadow only; do not engage' mean anything to you?_ He held back the rebuke. The crew was being punished enough for the error; it wouldn't do to add more fuel to the flames. Instead he gestured at the Interdictor Cruiser hiding behind the _Obliterator_ 's superstructure.  
"What happened?"  
"The Cruiser pulled one of Disra's ISDs from hyperspace, but they misjudged the distance. We were right in their firing range and they were ready for us. The _Obliterator_ is already systems-down, fried by an ion cannon salvo along the sensor relays."  
"How are the TIE screens holding up?"  
Static fizzled across the holo.  
"Well enough to block any proton torpedoes. We have the fighters from the _Obliterator_ as well, so we split them into an offensive and a defensive half."  
The offensive squadron had not provoked a single enemy TIE to launch, despite the obvious risk to the ship. Perhaps they didn't want to show their numbers; or perhaps the fighters were already elsewhere and this was a diversion, an alibi for the whereabouts of Disra and his bellicose Star Destroyers. Or perhaps not…  
"Get the Interdictor powered up again, use the fighters to launch chaff to scramble the _Tyrannic_ 's sensors. Can you calculate a short jump, quad precision?"  
The enemy must be desperate to jump if they aren't wasting time on launching and recalling fighters. The holo flickered again. Red turbolaser salvoes straddled the triangular mass of the Star Destroyer. The enemy gunners were finding the range of their new target, and quickly.  
"And jump her behind the _Obliterator_ , Admiral?"  
He nodded, realised that his subordinate couldn't see the gesture.  
"Yes. If she's out of the fight, the _Tyrannic_ won't be looking for threats from that direction."  
"TIE squadron White Four is reporting a successful ion hit on the rudder systems…The Interdictor's jumped now, sir."  
Pellaeon stared at the simulation. The smaller capital ship still floated above his table lamp. Suddenly it flickered. A heartbeat later it was floating near a shelf of holo plaques. A minute's delay between the battle comms and the full simulation.  
"The sim has just caught up, Captain."  
They had no choice, now. With the sublight rudder out, the _Tyrannic_ was unmanoeuvrable—and pointing straight at the gravity cone of the Interdictor. It would several minutes before the cone was fully powered. Pellaeon raked his hands impatiently through his hair. _Grey hairs._ He might be old, but he wasn't spare parts just yet.  
"The Interdictor reports gravity cone fully operational, we've got them!" laughed the captain in quarter-size.  
Suddenly, Pellaeon saw two red lines streaking across the room: proton torpedoes, curving around the _Obliterator_ 's superstructure to aim straight at the Interdictor.  
"Admiral, we've launched torpedo countermeasures."  
It was a regulation move. Pellaeon could only watch helplessly as the countermeasures exploded the proton torpedoes. The red lines vanished, revealing the blue lines of ion cannon fire in their wake. The green halo around the cruiser blinked twice.  
"Confirmation from the Interdictor: gravity cone power is out."  
A minute later, the _Tyrannic_ blinked from the simulation. Both of the enemy Star Destroyers were still on the loose.  
"The _Ironhand_ is ordered to return to Bastion for a full refit. Convey the same orders to the _Obliterator_ , captain."  
They had no choice but to abandon the chase. The admiral uncurled his clenched fists. He slid them along the starched wool of his uniform until they stopped trembling.Yes, he had lost…but only because of the time delay. Had he been directly commanding the battle… But battle was still battle, still set his nerves singing after all these years. _Conflict at last. You enjoyed it._ He pushed the guilty voice of his subconscious away. His personal feelings had no bearing on the proper course for the future of the Empire. They needed peace, desperately, before there was nothing left to salvage. Besides, he heard enough admonition in his dreams. Last night it had been Thrawn again, quietly reprimanding him for taking this course, echoing the doubts of every Moff and General he had had to shout and cajole into agreement. Logic had defeated them all, in the end. Yet somehow logic never worked in his sleep; that calm, smooth voice always left him tongue-tied, uncertain, desperate for instruction. No, not instruction, but surrender. As he had done, often in this very room which he now called his own. He laughed, but the irony sucked any joy from it like air from a breached hull.  


  


* * *

  


"Observe, Captain."  
The drive flares from the maintenance tugs darted around like blue-white fireflies outside the forward viewport. The bulk of the damaged _Tyrannic_ hovered to port. Neither view held the senior officers' attentions: instead the data from the battle was projected over the command chair. One of the two read Star Destroyers wavered as Thrawn indicated it with a finger.  
"The Interdictor's jump was extremely small, only several light seconds. A highly specialised manoeuvre."  
"The Ewok's already out of the bag, I'm afraid sir. Fizzing out one Star Destroyer and pummelling another, well, we can't exactly keep up the pretence of a war game now."  
Dorja sounded almost apologetic, as if the man might single-handedly coerce a two-thousand strong crew into silence all by himself. Even C'Baoth had encountered difficulty with that task.  
"And you are concerned about the rumours that the Empire is at war with itself?"  
"Not with itself, sir, just with Admiral Pellaeon. He is still—officially, at least—the Supreme Commander of the Fleet, and, well, everyone knows that he learned that move from you…"  
"Did he learn a taste for surrender from me too, Captain?" he observed darkly.  
Dishonoured Gods, if only they knew! The first time he had broken his duty of care to his fellow officer, it had been an eye-blink's lapse of self-control. A more poetic man might convince himself that the hand of fate had intervened: a reflexive exchange of glances, an accidental brush of skin to skin, a coincidental absence of the usual Noghri shadow. A less prosaic man might convince himself that the feverish desire for closeness had been so natural as to be inevitable.  
"I am certain that the Admiral has the Empire's best interests at heart, sir," his subordinate answered carefully.  
Diplomatic rot! One would think Dorja had transferred from the Special Courier Service, not the Imperial Security Bureau. Which was exactly why he had so underused the man's capabilities ten years ago.  
"Telling our Supreme Commander how to adequately express them is the purpose of this mission. What news from the—"  
In a beautiful twist of fate, the Chief Engineer chose that moment to approach the command chair.  
"Just the officer I wanted to see. Progress?"  
"We smacked into that stray comet pretty hard, Admiral."  
The navigation crewpit had already been re-rostered as a result. Fortunately, no-one wanted their embarrassment to spread beyond the bridge night crew. Scuttlebutt had been quiet on the issue so far. He had found a use for the comet, too.  
"Our repairs are complete, but we are running low on lubricant for the cloaking drive. The Chief Technician has been running diagnostics ever since we switched it off to contact the _Tyrannic_."  
"Very well, how much can we expect from it?"  
"According to the Chief Technician, only forty-eight hours guaranteed. Maybe sixty."  
Not enough time for a course diversion to refuel. They would have to head straight for Muunilist.  
"As for the _Tyrannic_ ; everything had spare parts except for the linkage drive on the rudder. We have managed to substitute parts from the _Relentless_ , but I'm afraid it cost us the front sensor array."  
"Anything else, Chief Engineer?"  
The officer saluted, departing.  
"I'll inform Navigation that the _Tyrannic_ will tkae the lead along the Braxtant Run, then?"  
"Thank you, captain. Instruct them to plot us a direct course to Muunilist."  
 _Without refuelling?_ was etched into every line on Dorja's brow.  
"Withour refuelling, Captain."  
The oft-puzzled look on his second-in-command's face was becoming most tiresome. Gods forbid what the man would look like if the Admiral asked for a game of holo-chess. Perhaps the effect would be permanent.  


  


* * *

  


Thrawn had visited his sleep again last night. Only this time he had not been sitting in this very command chair, red stains spreading on the perfect, white uniform while he lectured Pellaeon on his failings. Instead he had remembered an old failing: an excess of courage, when he had handed over the regulation-polished, leather belt with a smile and extended his bare wrists in submission. At the time, his woeful excuse had seemed so reasonable — "I wish to make certain that I am not abusing my...privilege," — and yet… It had suited them, so why trouble himself with justification? Especially when his partner had taken the initiative: had removed his own belt before shoving him backwards into the command chair and binding him to the arms? He could still feel the cold of the metal against his skin, even now, could hear the frantically alien discord of their pulses as they shifted together. Perhaps it was better for such things to be openly expressed instead of confined to the durasteel prison of one's quarters, as a wandering of hands and mind in the night. Or was that a pitiful excuse? He had sworn to himself that it would not happen again. Both of them would have some shore leave, relax, forget about the one little episode. The next campaign, they would continue as usual.  
"Caf, sir?"  
It had happened once on leave and twice during the attack on Coruscant.  
"Thank you, Captain."  
Ardiff carefully placed a steaming cup onto his desk. Such an easy familiarity, after so many years on the same ship; a marked contrast to the careful distance he and the Grand Admiral had shared. _Given twenty years in his service, I still would not dare to present Thrawn with caf and biscuits like a Moff's housewife!_ He had presented himself often enough. But that was a matter for another time. The Admiral hit the rewind button on the holopad menu. He selected 'Play' and reactivated the loop.  
"Your orders to Wyl Sector Force have been received and acknowledged, sir."  
He promptly burned his tongue on the caf and set it down again. The timer on the holoprojector imprinted numbers on the saucer.  
"Am I mad, Captain? I'm sending two Star Destroyers and six Dark Force Corvettes after a single Star Destroyer and another one with no sublight capability. That's an entire task force siphoned from a border sector while we're busy demonstrating to the Corporate Sector next door how much they might cherish the Empire's stability and firepower."  
"I'll agree with whatever plan you enact, if it prevents either of those Star Destroyers reaching the Corporate Sector, sir."  
He appropriated one of Ardiff's biscuits in response. It was briefly decorated with the red and green lines of turbolaser fire. He had asked himself all night what Disra was up to. Why would the most powerful Moff in the Imperial Remnant so blatantly antagonize the Supreme Commander? Of course, officially _he_ had struck first, thanks to that idiotic engagement in Dalonbian Sector. Nalgol could swear blind that they were just carrying out orders when they had been yanked from their hyperspace vector in an unprovoked attack.  
"What if the New Republic were as mad as you, sir?"  
"Hmmm?" he mumbled, hastily swallowing the remains of his biscuit.  
"How many capital ships can the New Republic afford to lose to wild bantha chases? There are thirteen Star Destroyers per Sector Fleet: even if we only send four of them, that's still fifty-two available for hit-and-run missions. If each one ties up the same amount of firepower as we are sending after, well, effectively one ISD, we could still tie up over four hundred capital ships."  
He sipped wearily at his caf. Maybe a final demonstration of the remaining might of the Empire would do some good. Would it give them more bargaining power? Or just make the Republic all the more merciless? He watched the Interdictor fail again.  
"Never mind the New Republic, how are we going to deal with our mutiny?"  
He stared at the saucer, timer still splashing its display onto the porcelain. Then he uttered the sort of phrases he hadn't shouted since his days as a junior Lieutenant.  
"I know exactly where the _Relentless_ is, Ardiff."  
He jabbed the fast-forward button.  
"Look at the timing. We know that there was a delay of a minute between the actual events of the battle and receiving the signal from the _Ironhand_. Yet the battle progresses in perfect sync with our dialogue. Not once does the crew pit call out anything that hasn't already happened on the full holo sim."  
"So the enemy decisions are in sync with yours?"  
"Yes. If the battle isn't directed from the _Tyrannic_ , then it can only be receiving orders from the _Relentless_. If they delay is the same as ours…"  
Two ships, two routes. He had leaped to the assumption that both ships would follow the same route, forcing Pellaeon to halve his firepower to cover both possibilities. But if they could be concealed without risk of ambush, then splitting them up was an advantage, not a drawback.  
"Are they right behind us or in front of us?"  
He called up a detailed map of dockyard facilities along the Braxtant-Raiobello-Atrivis route. Only Muunilist had a dry-dock suitable for a Star Destroyer.  
"It doesn't matter, captain. We know their destination. The _Relentless_ has to tow the rudderless _Tyrannic_ to the shipyards at Muunilist. This time, their commander has to be in front."  
Ardiff munched thoughtfully on the last biscuit.  
"All we need is an ambush. Suppose that we set the orbital defenses to fire at anything registering the mass of a Star Destroyer. Throw everything we have at the lead ship, cut off our master tactician and clean up the second ship."  
It was a very simple plan, but long experience had told Pellaeon that the more complicated a strategy, the more that could go wrong.  


  


* * *

  


With a dazzling spray of ice fragments, the comet in front of the _Tyrannic_ abruptly blew up. Sprays of subliming carbon dioxide curved around the cloaking shield, but the ship itself remained invisible. The _Relentless_ , on the other hand, was uncloaked. Ten light-seconds away, it had no way to avoid broadcasting its identity to the six Golan defense platforms in Muunilist's orbit.  
"Proton torpedoes from Golan defence platforms one, three and five have exploded our comet. Torperdo launches from platforms two, four and six have locked their targeting system to our ID beacon," reported the sensor crew pit.  
"Jump to hyperspace on my mark."  
The reloading time would leave Muunilist's orbital defences vulnerable to the _Tyrannic_ 's ion cannons. It was almost unfair: an enemy without the detailed orbital information of the defence platforms would never be able to fire without uncloaking, but such was the privilege of an ISB override code, courtesy of Captain Dorja's old colleagues.  
"Golan stations one and three reporting all systems shorted; five reporting sensors down."  
Muunilist wouldn't even know that they had jumped.  
"Three, two, one, mark."  
The stars blurred into lines. A matter of seconds later, the stars reappeared. Hiding next to the system's sun, its corona would conceal them from visual sensors and its mass from gravitational ones. With the _Tyrannic's_ orbit plotted in advance, they would know precisely when and where to re-enter the system to neutralise the other four battle stations.  


Half an hour later, Thrawn wasn't so pleased. The admiral counted turbolaser flashes. Friendly salvoes came every twenty seconds; the enemy's every ten. The _Chimaera_ was occupied with the _Tyrannic_ —and enjoying marked success, if the lack of return fire was any indication. The latest Sienar Predictor packages, no doubt; their use neatly inverted from firing out of a cloaked ship into one.  
"How can the _Chimaera_ fire that fast? Both our ships have a full gun complement: eighteen batteries manned to their eight."  
"Eight batteries with more range than ours, sir. Faster targeting too," the gun crew reported. "She's literally just out of Bastion's dry-dock—we didn't get the updated records before the cloaking shield blocked communications. We're still running on systems Admiral Daala installed…"  
Naturally the flagship would get the best of everything. It was merely an unintended but minor failure that the precise capabilities were unknown. _Or precisely what you intended. Nalgol is no match for Pellaeon, never was. His surrender will be a little faster, that's all._ He banished the stray thought. Admiral or not, Pellaeon would have enough to distract him now that five of the six orbital defence platforms were useless. Meanwhile, the last Golan was proving stubbornly competent.  
"We've already negated the range advantage, only the fire volume remains, Admiral. The _Tyrannic_ only has to hold: we can tie up the Golan by ourselves," pointed out Dorja.  
As if to disagree with the captain, bridge emergency lighting suddenly bathed the crew pits in a red glow.  
"Foreward shield is disabled on starbord, Captain. Number two shield is damaged and re-powering, number one is completely out," came the call from the defensive screens.  
"We lost the electrical compartments between them too," called one of the engineers, as if to reinforce the emergency lighting.  
"Get TIE command to cover the shield—" began Dorja.  
"Belay that order. TIE command is to continue its pincer movement. Unshielded turrets are to continue as normal, concentrating our fire on the Golan's drive linkage gap," he confirmed. "And do recall that this is an Imperial capital ship rather than an auction house, Lieutenant Commander."  
"Yes, Admiral."  
The Golan only had ten minutes before its orbit carried it out of firing range. TIE command should be able to infiltrate the fighters rising from the surface while the station's command was occupied by the _Relentless_. They would land in the Golan's refuelling bays and take the station from behind its own shield, if necessary.  
"With respect, sir—"  
"Would you prefer that we identified which shields have fallen to the enemy?"  
"Admiral, we're receiving a transmission from the _Chimaera_."  
"Our precious Moff can answer it. It's about time he contributed to this exercise."  
But what answer should he give? Victory was theirs, if only Pellaeon could be made to see it. _In the first round, perhaps._ Thrawn reached for the ring of holo screens on his command chair.  


  


* * *

  


Disra was going to kill him. An aneurysm, a heart attack, boredom…the only question was how.  
"Is this your plan? With all due respect, Moff Disra, how will a pointless last salvo help in our treaty negotiations?"  
"Do you call tying up four hundred capital ships 'useless', Admiral? More, in fact, because the sheer size of the New Republic's territory would work against it."  
Pellaeon nodded. He had to concede that to the blasted bureaucrat at least.  
"Almost exponentially, Disra."  
The plan was strikingly similar to the early stages of Thrawn's original campaign, hit-and-run missions along vital trade routes.  
"However, suppose we do take that course. Is an influential world newly-pummelled with the bombardment of an entire super-battleship meekly going to hand itself over to us? Do we install a new Moff in the middle of Republic-held space with a 'Sorry for breaking the furniture, we'll be terribly polite in our new home now that you've handed over the keys'?"  
He paced the quarters, directing his temper into his legs instead of the volume of his voice. An exact replica of his own, down to the floating command chair in the centre of the room.  
"So you doubt that my plan will work, _Admiral_ Pellaeon?"  
He had lost the power of speech altogether. There was something electrifying about that presence, even now. The Grand Admiral still made him light-headed. Or perhaps that was just the shock, perhaps it wasn't real, just a uniformed doppelganger. Everyone knew that he of all people would want this, no, need this to be true. But that way lay madness.  
"Blasting apart the Rebellion won't restore the Empire, sir."  
Somehow, five years after he had had to salute anyone, he found his spine stretching into parade-ground rigidity.  
"No?" A single eyebrow lifted. "What other choice would a system have, once we have proven that the Rebels cannot protect them in the long term?"  
He lowered his fingers from his cap. Old habits died hard. Was everything else which Thrawn had instilled in him still present? Would the Grand Admiral have only to crook his fingers and…Somehow his voice still worked.  
"The Rebels would have to let them go, that's true. But why choose their attackers?"  
That earned him a smile. The curl of lips still made his knees weak, as if gravity itself encouraged him to fall before the chair and let his superior stroke his hair and direct his mouth.  
"Proving weakness and utilising it are not the same things, Admiral. Attack targets of secondary importance and their more vital neighbours will flock to us."  
Tipping the balance in their favour twice over. And yet, and yet, if this plan were so simple, why had he not invented it himself? He pivoted and began to stride the length of the room once more.  
"In the end, we would still lose."  
A hand reached out to his sleeve. Pellaeon stilled instantly, pacing forgotten.  
"Precisely. Without an external threat, the Empire's driving ethos is useless. Attractive and sustainable, yes, but—"  
"But only if we hold our systems by choice, instead of force, sir."  
He wondered if his superior could feel the pulse in wild staccato beneath his fingertips.  
"Doubtless the precise details of the negotiations will take quite some time, Admiral."  
"I will re-examine every detail personally, sir."  
The glowing eyes met his, ever so briefly.  
"I do hope that the matter takes your full attention. I look forward to assessing the improvement in your skills."  
For once, the Grand Admiral's voice held the faintest trace of amusement.  



End file.
